Few things in any society carry as much ridiculousness and potency as its superstitions. This Taiwanese drama introduces us to I-Jing, a endearing five-year-old who has just moved back to Taipei with her mother and older sister. She gets literal firsthand experience when her grandfather admonishes her for using her left hand for everything – it’s not natural, he insists; it’s the devil at work, he claims.
As I-Jing gazes upon her appendage with concern, a new relationship forms between her and her so-called cursed hand while she navigates city life. Filmed completely with iPhones, debut solo director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou, along with frequent collaborator Sean Baker, captures the frenetic energy and sensory immersion of Taipei. Vibrant crimson Chinese characters cover the glass windows of a pawn shop; the pleasant melody of garbage trucks fills the air; the fluid exchange of Mandarin and Taiwanese between generations; verdant foliage against aged structures that nearly evoke the scent the unique atmosphere of a vibrant, humid city. It’s not so much a love letter from a fan as it is a dedication to a place deeply familiar. Tsou combines the kaleidoscopic fragments of the city with the splinters of flawed individuals – movingly showing what it means to be a family in Taiwan, and presenting a triumph of a film.
Family Relationships and Personal Struggles
The drama, Taiwan’s entry for best international feature film at the Oscars, starts with I-Jing, her older sister, and her mom in a rebuild stage. Pensive mom Shu-Fen has established a night market noodles stand, and the unpredictable I-Ann has left high school and works at a betel nut stall, where she’s sleeping with her boss. I-Jing, played by the very charming Nina Ye, starts a new school and, with the wonder only a child can have, experiments with the potential of this newly anointed devil hand.
As she starts pocketing trinkets at the night market with the cursed limb, distinguishing a good hand that does what’s required and the other that pursues what the heart desires, Tsou skillfully reflects each character’s own internal conflicts. Here, the film delineates the intricacies between what a person feels obligated to and what she genuinely desires: Shu-Fen can’t free herself from her trash ex-husband’s debts; I-Ann feels reduced to the role her mom wants her to play as she watches her peers advance; I-Jing is told to be present but silent.
Visual Storytelling and Emotional Depth
Tsou, along with Baker as editor and Ko-Chin Chen and Tzu-Hao Kao as cinematographers, expertly places us onto each family member’s separate planets, with many shots recording the frisky and delightful rhythms of daily Taipei life. We’re at the same height with I-Jing as she makes her first theft, the excitement building with a camera unsteady and beat staccato. The camera pans overhead as I-Ann rides her scooter at night, city lights glistening in the heat, bringing an boundless feeling of freedom with a pain that’s hers alone to feel.
A sense of duty is deftly woven into each dilemma, as well as the loneliness that comes with it – it’s at once personal and saddening to see how duty is often a lonely journey. We see it when I-Jing tries in earnest to draw with her right hand, when I-Ann rests in bed after being mocked at an ex-classmate’s motel party. Meanwhile, Shu-Fen scrambles to make rent, her own mom annoyed she needs help yet again. “A married daughter’s like water that’s poured out,” says the grandma; a son would have still been her responsibility.
Lighter Moments and Performances
There are also moments of levity and playfulness, especially with the grandma’s bouts of anger, time with a meerkat that becomes I-Jing’s pet, and I-Jing’s general delight with the world. Ye, who is a left-hander in real life, expertly walks the tightrope of an innocent child absorbing the financial realities and unknown entities – Shu-Fen’s ex, the grandma’s antics, I-Ann and Shu-Fen’s arguments – that surround her. Ma’s I-Ann, too, is a considered portrait of an sharp teenager dealing with grief, making it feel like an inescapable but unaffordable emotion in an environment where everyone’s just trying to survive.
Climactic Scenes and Themes
By the soap opera-like second-to-last dinner scene, the clan has developed big secrets that lead to the ultimate Taiwanese diu lian (losing of face): getting humiliated in front of an audience. And the disclosures are good – by that point, it’s like discovering a shocking, painful secret about a close companion. Tsou and Baker’s script keenly examines what it really means to be shamed: which shames are honorable, which are self-serving, and what should be passed from one generation to the next?
Some of these revelations are left unresolved after the big confrontation, and Left-Handed Girl may leave you wanting more – but perhaps also realizing that blowing it all up doesn’t mean closure or a neat lesson immediately follows, or that there will be a sinister influence to blame. Instead, perhaps the city just wakes up to another day, and, a little freer (having lost a little face), so do you.
- Availability: The film is available in select cinemas on November 14 and on streaming platforms from 28 November.
